Undergraduate Classes, GPA, Awards, and Work Experience

Biology

  • General Biology 1 and 2 with Labs
  • Principles of Ecology
  • Genetics
  • Evolution
  • Plant Kingdom - plant evoloution, plant morphology, plant anatomy, plant reproduction, plant identification, and plant ecology
  • Cell Biology
  • Microbiology
  • Ecology of Plant/Soil Interactions - plant ecology and plant physiology
  • Plant Field Studies - plant systematics and plant ecology
  • Advanced Field Ecology - field ecology techniques and recognition of community types and ecosystem patterns
  • Plant Anatomy and Development
  • Plant Physiology
  • Arguments in Scientific Writing

Chemistry

  • General Chemistry 1 and 2 with Labs
  • Organic Chemistry 1 and 2 with Labs
  • Biochemistry

Physics

  • General Physics 1 and 2 with Labs

Math

  • College Algebra
  • Trigonometry
  • Calculus
  • Statistics

Other Classes

  • Astronomy
  • Humanities
  • Philosophy - Introduction to Philosophy, Philosophy and Society, Introductory Logic
  • Writing - Introduction to Expository Writing, Introduction to Argumentative Writing
  • Spanish - Spanish I, II and III
  • Geography - World Regional Geography, Geography of Minnesota
  • Computer Science - Problem Solving and Design, Applied Problem Solving in Pascal
  • Business - Introduction to Business
  • Speech - Interpersonal Communication
  • Sociology - Introduction to Sociology, Social Problems
  • Psychology - Human Behavior
  • Literature - English Literature
  • Honors Seminar - Heroines and Heroic Tradition
  • Political Science - American Political and Governmental Institutions
  • History - World Civilization
  • Advanced First Aid - useful!
  • Other Electives - Drawing, Music Theory

GPA and Standardized Test Scores

Here's the breakdown of my performance in the standard tests of intellectual ability. GPA calculations include all credits I earned as an undergraduate (over 170 of them !)

  • Major GPA - 3.983 (EPOB classes, general chemistry, general physics, and calculus).
  • Upper Division GPA - 3.946.
  • University of Colorado GPA - 3.963 (Junior, Senior, and half of Sophomore year).
  • Front Range Community College GPA - 4.000 (Part of Sophomore year).
  • Normandale Community College GPA - 2.563 (Freshman year - I was working 3 jobs, including running my own desktop publishing and computer graphics business, so I rarely had time to study).
  • Overall GPA - 3.709 for all four years (3.547 if you count both grades for classes I took twice and also credits that didn't transfer in towards my BA degree).
  • SAT scores
    • 660 verbal
    • 710 math
  • GRE scores
    • 720 verbal
    • 720 analytical
    • 700 quantitative (I love math, but curse ETS for putting that horrible experimental math section as the first part of the test!)
    • 800 on the Biology Subject test (93rd percentile)

Honors and Awards

  • I was awarded an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship to pay my tuition and living expenses for three years of graduate school.
  • I was awarded a four-year fellowship/RA-ship by the Ecology Graduate Group at UC Davis.
  • I graduated with a Summa Cum Laude Bachelor of Arts degree in December of 1997 (Judging by the number of "real" science classes I took, I should have earned a Bachelor of Science degree instead).
  • Dean's List - I was on the Dean's List every semester I was at University of Colorado and at Front Range.
  • Dean's Scholars Award - given to top 400 juniors and seniors, I was given this for the fall of 1995, the spring and fall of 1996, and the spring of 1997. (During the fall of 1997 I had too many credits to be eligible).
  • EPOB Club Undergraduate Research Award for Summer 1996 -- only given to six students each summer -- I used this award to fund my honors thesis research.
  • Member of Phi Beta Kappa.
  • Member of Golden Key Honor Society.

Research

  • See my Honors thesis on my home page for my 1996 research.
  • My 1997 research looked at the effectiveness of patches of native grass at reducing the density of diffuse knapweed. The differences in density can be found at my density results page, and the differences in species composition can be found at my species composition page.
  • My 1998 research was a continuation of my 1997 research. I looked at the change in knapweed density and the change in species competition at the Lastoka grasslands in Louisville, Colorado. Check out these results at my 1998 knapweed density results page and at my 1998 knapweed species composition page. I also conducted a census of Canada thistle (Cirsium arvense) on Boulder Open Space's Yunker Property tallgrass plots, which I am attempting to publish somewhere.

Work

  • August, 1998 to present - Graduate student with a research project, working on my own stuff and my labs and occasionally being a teaching assistant.
  • August, 1996 to July, 1998 - Niwot Ridge LTER Data Managment, INSTAAR, CU-Boulder - Duties include formatting and archiving ecological field data and some programming (mostly in perl on the UNIX).
  • Other duties at INSTAAR ( Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research) - preparation of KCl extraction samples from resin bags/soil cores, editing and proofreading of proposals, field work including plant identification and collection of soil cores and other samples, creation of the Virtual Field Trip to Niwot Ridge web site, and various and sundry other tasks.
  • July, 1997 - Consulting botanist for the Bureau of Reclamation - Duties include collection and identification of wetland plants (including Juncaceae and Cyperaceae) and preparation of herbarium specimens.
  • September, 1995 to August, 1996 - Dutcher Laboratory, Porter Biosciences - Duties included stocking lab supplies, washing and sterilizing glassware, and preparing media solutions for E. coli and Chlamydomonas.
  • Volunteer work for the Boulder Community Network - duties include assisting at internet orientation classes for the public and construction of web pages for non-profit organizations.

Computer Literacy

Computers used:

  • Macintosh (proficient in a wide variety of applications)
  • IBM (Windows NT/95/98/2000/XP)
  • UNIX (some programming experience in perl, also shell script and awk script writing)
  • I am also an experienced internet researcher (akin to a treasure hunter when it comes to sorting out the mess of information on the web) and fluent in HTML.

Back to the Research page.

1